THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



231 



is so large and so complete and so effect- 

 ive that it enters into every soldier's life. 

 Of course, on the other side, when we 

 have casualties and many wounded, the 

 functions of the Red Cross will assume 

 the greater importance ; but in the train- 

 ing camps it is otherwise. 



It is most gratifying to be able to tes- 

 tify, from all the information I could get, 

 that no camps have ever been so free 

 from drunkenness as those in this present 

 national effort. In most cases the nearest 

 towns are dry, and the great cities where 

 drink may be had are so far from the 

 camps as not to prove a temptation. The 

 same thing is true of the morality of the 

 men, so far as I was able to learn from 

 the commanding officers. There were 

 some of the camps where the neighboring 

 towns were wet, but the danger of selling 

 liquor to soldiers as a violation of the 

 commercial law has proved a very excel- 

 lent preventive. I must think from what 

 I saw that the activities of the Y. M. C. A. 

 and these other institutions have played 

 a large part in maintaining decent and 

 proper living among the soldiers. 



The sites of the camps seem to have 

 been very well selected, so far as drainage 

 and water supply were concerned. The 

 sanitary features have been well looked 

 after. In some, as at Columbia, S. C, 

 the soil is so porous that a drill can be 

 held without difficulty the same day after 

 a heavy rain. 



EACH CAMP A GREAT CITY 



Each camp is a great city of from 1,400 

 to 2,000 buildings, sufficient to house and 

 accommodate 40,000 men. The distance 

 from one end of a camp to another is 

 often three or four miles, and from one 

 side of a camp to the other some two or 

 three miles. There is always in the reser- 

 vation a place for a rifle range, though it 

 has not always been constructed, and in 

 a number of camps there is room enough 

 for an artillery range, though the field 

 guns as yet are few and far between. 



The appearance of the camps is inter- 

 esting, but not beautiful. The buildings 

 are unpainted and the sites have fre- 

 quently had to be cleared of timber, leav- 

 ing stumps that don't add to the beauty 

 of the landscape. I observe that the 

 Quartermaster's Department has asked 



for $2,800,000 to paint the buildings in- 

 side and out, and I think it would be a 

 saving of money to the government if 

 this could be done. Certainly it would 

 greatly add to appearance. The Young 

 Men's Christian Association does paint its 

 buildings green, and one's eye rests with 

 relief upon them in these oceans of 

 weather-stained yellow boarding. 



The camps differ much in the roads 

 constructed within their limits. In many 

 of them within the reservation the main 

 roads are good, but in muddy weather in 

 some of the camps they are not what they 

 should be. It would doubtless have been 

 better if the roads could have been built 

 before the buildings had been constructed, 

 because the weather would then have 

 been good for the building of roads, and 

 it would have made the cost of transpor- 

 tation necessary in construction very 

 much more reasonable. The roads from 

 the nearest towns or cities to the camps 

 also differ much, and some of them in the 

 winter and in wet weather try cruelly the 

 springs of the automobiles and the nerves 

 of their occupants in going to and from 

 camp. 



THE MEN ARE COMFORTABLY HOUSED 



The men in barracks are very comfort- 

 ably housed. There are two methods of 

 heating — one by great furnace stoves and 

 the other by steam pipes. In the hurry 

 of the job, and because of the difficulty of 

 getting sufficient pipe, the system is not 

 circulatory and wastes hot water at one 

 end. This should be changed, and the 

 quartermaster has recommended it, so as 

 to make it a double system, which would 

 be a great saving in the matter of water. 

 It would probably offer a better oppor- 

 tunity for regulation. The criticism that 

 can be made on the system now is, be- 

 cause it must be turned on or off from 

 outside the building, it either parboils one 

 or leaves one frozen in cold weather. 



With some actual experience, I got the 

 impression that the men on the whole are 

 comparatively more comfortable than are 

 the officers. There was in the beginning, 

 it seems to me, an unnecessary disposi- 

 tion on the part of the officers to deny 

 themselves comforts that they might just 

 as well have had without any great 

 amount of additional expense. Often, in- 



